There will be no Heroes
by SSG Dignam
Summary: Alternate Universe: On a seedy and rainy Nos Astra, Ashley attempts to evade Cerberus and meet up with Anderson, Miranda struggles to protect her sister from a madman, and Garrus wages a war on crime.  T for violence and brief language
1. Nos Astra at Night

Nos Astra, Illium

2184

My name is Madigan, and I work for Cerberus.

They always tell you that Illium is like Vegas back on Earth: Full of opportunity and promise. In reality, Illium is more corrupt than any other planet I've been to, and I've been around. Illium just hides its menace a little better under a curtain of charm, so that you don't want to risk looking under it and finding out what kind of place you're in.

They also tell you that Nos Astra is a benchmark city that all species should take note of. They never tell you about the Outskirts of the city.

Being in the crime-infested Outskirts makes you want to look for the Afterlife club, because anyone on Omega would be at home there.

The alleys are twisted and winding, with the streets crumbling under constant use and no maintenance.

The busted windows and rotting doorways in alleys are home to those not fortunate enough to be born in a place that they could prosper in. They aren't criminals. Not in a world of criminals.

They were all looking at a man standing on the street corner, under a dim city light. They were looking at the man in a dark trench coat and silver tie, sizing him up for a quick heist. They were all looking at me.

I could see their eyes glowing in the dark, even through the wind and rain there were pairs and quartets of eyes staring at me.

I held their stares, all of their stares.

My hand reached down and unbuttoned the front of my jacket, just enough for them to see my Hand Canon tucked under my armpit.

Funny how almost all of them went away after they realized that I was armed. There were only a few who stuck around, waiting to see if one of them was crazy enough or desperate enough to take a swing at me. But they valued their lives too much to try anything.

I quickly buttoned up my jacket, trying to stop the cold from biting my chest. It was too cold here.

Where was he?

I had been ordered to wait here, right here, for Pel and two more troopers to contain a prisoner by the docks. That was over two hours ago.

Pel was another agent, a sociopath if I ever knew one. A comedian too.

Pel was the worst type of comedian, one that thought that he was funny by making everyone else's lives miserable.

And that wasn't very funny.

Not in Nos Astra, not in this weather. Anywhere but here.

Finally he showed up.

He was rolling in an average car, a repurposed cab with the two other men just like he promised.

"Get in," he told me like I was supposed to do anything else.

"So, did you make any new friends along the way, Madigan?" he was laughing from inside his heated car at me, the sucker who had believed that his antics would give me a break.

"Just your mother, Pel. We had a nice little visit while I was waiting, thank you." I climbed into the car just as the two other goons started laughing.

"And they say I'm the comedian around here," he smiled as he rounded the corner, speeding down the crooked streets.

"So what have we got, gentlemen?" I leaned closer to the two other Agents in the backseat.

"We caught a break. An Alliance Operative," Grayson, another agent, told me. I liked Grayson a lot better than Pel, even though I was pretty sure he had a Red Sand addiction.

Grayson was more experienced, more cool under fire. And for a guy who was a junkie to be more likable than Pel meant something.

"Where is he?" I asked. The Alliance had been sticking its nose in our business a lot lately, and sooner or later they had to pay for it.

"_She, _actually. Fiesty little thing, too," Pel commented from the driver's seat.

"We picked her up a few hours ago. She was looking around one of our warehouses when security apprehended her during her escape," Grayson informed me. Straight to business.

"Where are you holding her? Did we lose any men?"

"She's still at the warehouse. She killed seven of the twelve guards before one of them got a shot off."

Okay. So there was a situation to be dealt with.

"What are we gonna do with her?" I asked Grayson.

Pel answered for him. "There's a new interrogation method I wanted to try out. _Zamochit _it's called. "The Breaking of the Bones." The Russians came up with it-"

"Shut up, Pel," Grayson silenced him. "We'll most likely have Pel get some information out of her before giving her back to Anderson and Hackett… in a body bag."

My eyes widened. "Really, Grayson? Do we need to kill some girl just to get a point across?"

I worked for Cerberus full time, but I wasn't into killing prisoners, especially women. Killing like that seemed too… cowardly for me.

"Ohhhhh, I am gonna have such a good time when we get back to base," Pel tapped a drum beat on the steering wheel.

Yeah, that moron is an interrogation specialist. A good one, too.

But I didn't like it when he tortured just for the sake of hurting somebody. It didn't seem right.

But who am I to lecture people about right and wrong?

"Yeah, her name is Ashley Williams, an Ops Chief I think. She's a fighter," Grayson said, nodding.

"I think I heard of her back when I was in the Alliance," I told him. Poor girl. She was still paying for her grandfather's mistakes, and now she was going to pay for Anderson's mistake to send her here alone.

It didn't seem fair.

"That's great. You two should have lots to talk about," Pel said as he pulled into the warehouse. "I don't think she has a boyfriend either, so do you think you could put in a good work for me?"

One day I was gonna break his freaking jaw, so he would just shut up.

I just didn't know it would be so soon.


	2. Will of a Madman

Pel might have been a conniving little schister, but he was right sometimes.

Ashley was a fighter alright.

After we entered the rustic warehouse, a man with a bloody nose and a limp showed us to where they were holding her.

Or trying to hold her.

By the time we got there, I saw five guys struggling to get her into a cell. They were all dressed in street clothes and unarmed, as they didn't want her to kill them with a weapon she might get her hands on.

Grayson and I rushed in, shoving the huddle forward until they were _all_ in the cell, as she had the security chief by the throat and wasn't about to let go.

Grayson had a stun gun in his waist coat, but he would probably fry all of them if he shot her with it.

Once they were all in the cell, we peeled the guards away one at a time, telling them to wait outside.

That worked until there was only one left. She still had the security chief in a headlock and wasn't showing any signs of wearing out. It took me and Grayson and an unwilling Pel to drag him to safety and shut her inside.

I could barely see her in the dark, but she was in her Alliance blues, which were now crumpled and stained. Her hair was still somehow pulled back in a tight bun behind her head. My guess is that she had seen worse odds than this.

It took a minute for the security chief to stand, even with our help. It would take a lot longer for his pride to recover, though.

"Jesus Christ, have you people got her?" Pel demanded, straightening out his ruffled jacket.

"Thank you," the exhausted chief shook my hand, then Grayson's respectively. He avoided Pel, though.

"Did you people bring any sedatives?" one of the few unhurt guards asked us.

Grayson held up his stun gun. Pel had one too. They were both experts in extraction, and so was I.

"Good. We have to move her within the next hour," the chief told us through his thick beard. "The Alliance will start sending rescue teams within the next day, and I plan to be long gone by the time they are in orbit above Illium."

"Do you need help moving the equipment?" I asked. I hadn't seen any on my way in, but there was a stockpile of weapons and false information and god-knows-what-else around here. And the Alliance finding that would be very bad for our agents of Illium.

"We have a contingency plan. Don't worry," he assured me. "We have shuttles that are being loaded as we speak."

Of course he didn't want us helping him. Even though we were on the same team, he had probably been ordered to keep anyone from seeing whatever he was storing here, even fellow agents.

I didn't care what was here. Half of staying alive in my line of work is not asking questions that you don't need the answers to.

"Could you just… watch her?" he asked us.

"Sure thing, pal," Pel patted him on the shoulder as the guards filed out.

We found some old chairs lying in a corner and pulled them up on either side of the steel door separating us from Ashley.

Pel, Grayson, and I sat vigil around the room. Pel and Grayson covered the exit while I sat up against the wall that held back Ashley. In truth, I didn't think that I could take her in a fist fight, not alone.

One thing I realized was that it wasn't any warmer in here than it was out on the streets. It just wasn't raining or windy in here.

I opened my coat only enough to unsnap my shoulder holster. I wanted to be ready for anything Ashley might try.

The real problem was that I might not be able to kill her if it ever came to that.

I was getting tired of hurting people. I was good at it, and that's what made it hard to sleep sometimes. It's like this was all I was ever born to do, and that was too sad to think about.

Then I heard banging on the cell door.

I literally jumped out of my chair and drew my Hand Canon. But it was only her testing it, she was trying to see if we would respond to her antics.

But she kept on beating the door like she was trying to take it off of its hinges.

"It ain't gonna open sweetheart!" Pel shouted mockingly.

"What are you gonna do about it you wussie?" Ashley shouted back.

It was true. The moment Pel opened that door, she would bust his jaw, which I wouldn't exactly try too hard to stop.

"You'll see when we get back to base! Oh yeah, that will make my entire freaking week hearing you scream!" Pel shouted.

Grayson stepped in before I could, hushing Pel.

Pel didn't deserve to hurt her. She could pound him under any circumstances and he needed her restrained to hurt her.

It wasn't fair.

A few moments later, the rest of the security team arrived, eager to get moving.

Pel didn't take any chances. He pumped a sedative in aerosol form under the door before we all entered, weapons drawn.

Pel picked her unconscious body up and handed her to me as he got the car ready.

She was light, despite being deadweight. She reminded me of my little sister, who I hadn't seen in years.

I carried her back into the cold and into the car waiting for us. The four of us would be traveling in the car, with the other guards and supplies in the transport behind us.

We left the warehouse behind. But I couldn't leave behind the thoughts of what would happen to her when we got back to base.

Oh god, she was just a girl!

Did anyone else care?

The stoic looks of Grayson and Pel answered that for me. They might have had some feelings, but they weren't acting on them for whatever reason.

Pel couldn't feel anything and Grayson might be too drugged out to notice what was wrong with this picture.

But I wasn't heartless. And I wasn't a drug addict.

It was time to take matters into my own hands, give this universe some real justice for a change.

Going against Cerberus would be a betrayal to everything I stood for, but I didn't stand for anything anyway.

It was time to prove that I was worth a damn.

When you make a life changing decision, you tend to think about it a lot before you finally go through with it, but what I did next had no forethought what so ever.

I was sitting behind Pel, with Grayson and Ashley on my left in the backseat.

Without warning any of them, I lunged forward from the back seat and slammed into Pel, who was driving., my shoulder pushing him against the window of the driver's side door.

I grabbed the wheel and yanked it hard to the left, sending our car careening off the road.

The sudden drop threw me back into my seat.

For a moment, we were weightless, floating through time and space.

Then the vehicle was slammed to the water, hard.

I felt the icy fingers of a lake full of rainwater reach up at me, pulling my feet, trying to drag me to the bottom.

Beside me, Ashley had woken up and smashed out the rear window, attempting to wiggle out before Grayson could recover. But it was too late.

Grayson grabbed her and hauled her back into the car, which was filling with ice water. The black liquid was lapping at my boots now.

Only he waas so busy with her that he didn't notice me yank the stun gun out of his waistband and press it against his neck.

He froze, knowing what I was about to do.

Ashley broke free right as I hit him with enough power to stop a Krogan. Oh yeah, he went limp alright.

"Goddamn it, Madigan!" Pel was struggling to draw his weapon, as the leg he kept it on was pinned under the steering wheel.

"Come on!" Ashley shouted, offering a hand to me.

Why she would want to save me I didn't know, but I also didn't ask.

She helped me up and out of the rear window of the car, which was almost completely filled with water and sinking fast.

We jumped the short distance from the rear bumper to shore, crashing down on the coarse gravel.

"Thank you! How did Anderson know who would be guarding the warehouse?" she started to get up, a bewildered look on her face.

Then it dawned on me. She thought I was working for the Alliance!

"He didn't. I'm not with the Alliance, Williams." I answered simply, rising to my feet.

"Wait. I don't get it," Ashley took a step back.

"Get this!" I heard Pel's voice right behind me.

Ashley and I hit the deck just as his volley of shots whizzed by.

"Get out of here, Williams!" I screamed, drawing my Camifex from under my jacket.

"But who are you?"

"Nobody! Now move!" I shoved her toward the slope that lead back to the streets. If I could buy her some time, it would be easy for her to lose them in the winding alleys and twisted streets.

Then I turned to see Grayson and Pel standing just out of the water, weapons drawn.

"Why, Madigan?" Grayson was seething, looking pale and unsure in the rain, even though he had his Predator trained on me.

"Why what, Grayson? Why did you have your stun gun set to that high of a charge?"

"Don't play games!" Pel screamed, hunched over and breathing heavily. "I'll kill you!"

My hand cannon was at my side, because I knew they'd kill me if I brought it to bear.

Then I realized that neither of them could kill me. They were both shaking so hard that they could barely hold their guns, and Grayson was having muscle spasms, his legs and arms twitching.

They were only a few meters away now. I could rush them in a flash.

"Fine." I set my pistol on the ground. "Come and get me."

Before either of them could react, I charged them headfirst, aiming for the short gap between the two of them.

I knocked Pel and Grayson to the gravel, sending their guns into the water.

Grayson was the first to recover, struggling to stand up in the slippery terrain.

I threw up my boot and hit him just under the rib cage, winding him and throwing him back into the drink with a splash.

Pel was next. He threw a wild right punch, clipping me in the jaw. It was just a grazing blow, but I still tasted blood.

The only problem was that he could barely stand up straight, let alone hit me hard enough to knock me down.

I rammed a knee into his side, doubling him over.

I shoved him backward. He stumbled and fell down, but was quick to get back up.

I jumped backward, avoiding a roundhouse kick and a follow-up left hook.

Then he tried to hit me in the throat with a flattened fist.

I grabbed his arm and used his own weight against him, bringing Pel back to the mud, face first.

Pel was stronger than I was, and younger, but I had a lot more fight left in me.

I grabbed Pel by the back of his jacket, hauling him to his feet and leaving the jacket hanging loosely from his shoulders.

The I did what I promised myself I would do: I swung my right arm as hard as I could and broke Pel's jaw with a solid punch.

Then a bullet slammed into my back, bringing me to my knees in the rainy night.

Then another hit me. And another and another.

The men from the transport must have caught on to what I was doing and opened fire. Crap, I forgot about them.

It felt like someone parked a dumptruck on my back as I lay there, riddled with high powered rifle rounds.

"Madigan! You move again and I'll finish you!" A voice a million miles away was screaming at me.

The bright spotlights shone upon where I had fallen for the whole world to see.

But I had one thing left to do.

"Grayson!" I coughed up hot red as I called him.

"What, Madigan?" He was shivering.

"Tell my sister I love her."

I rolled over, grabbing the pistol in my ankle holster and fired; again and again and again.

I heard one of them scream from above before the others started raining bullets down on me.

I was dying. But that girl was okay.

I was dying.

But it was alright.


	3. There will be No Mercy

My name is Ashley Williams, and I have a problem.

Now when most people talk about problems, they mean stuff like forgetting to stop at the grocery store or losing your car keys; Simple stuff that pisses you off more than it should.

My problem is slightly larger.

I stumble through the hundredth back alley in my escape, the rain blinding me as I step over some busted cans and an empty cardboard box. I see eyes watching me from the dark windows, waiting for me to trip and fall so that they can finish me. But I won't let them have the satisfaction of being able to kill me so easily.

I had been running all night trying to evade Cerberus, if they were still even following me.

I remember hearing the gunfire behind me shorty after Madigan helped me escape. He was probably gone now. Whoever he was, he had sacrificed himself for me, whom he apparently didn't know to begin with.

I decided then and there to sort out the Jenga tower of events when I was somewhere warmer and less rainy. Maybe they'd give me leave after i made it back.

Yeah, a week in Amaterasu with Sarah and Mom sounded really good right now.

My battered body was starting to run out of juice. I had been fighting the Cerberus punks tooth and nail since being captured, and it was wearing me out pretty fast.

Cerberus Agents. Pansies. They knew how to fight well enough, they just didn't have anything to fight for. That was why I could beat them. They were fighting for a paycheck and I was fighting for Humanity. Big freaking difference.

If half of the Cerberus soldiers valued Humanity's place in the galaxy above a ridiculously oversize paycheck, then Cerberus would be a lot farther along by now.

I tried to keep my mind off of my fatigue by thinking these thoughts. I could think of anything but stopping now, when my life depended upon it most.

My feet continued to churn through the mud and over the cracked pavement, passing the homeless and those a few days from being alongside them.

I realized that I wasn't too different from them; at the end of my rope and the odds of making it out of the dreary Outskirts slim to none.

Come on, Ashley. You're a marine. You're a fighter, a survivor.

You survived Illos with Shepard. You survived a Collector attack. Now pull yourself together and make it through, just until morning.

I had to find an extranet terminal, any extranet terminal would let me call for evac from Hackett's men. They would find me immediately and whisk me off to another place, any other place would do.

Eventually my body stopped cooperating with me. My legs grew weak. My eyes could barely stay open.

I fell down into the mud, face first, and didn't get up.

I wouldn't get up until morning.

Southern Nos Astra, Early morning

My name is Miranda Lawson, and my day just got a whole lot worse.

I work for Cerberus, but I can gather that you know that by now.

I also have a sister, Orianna, whom I love very much. I don't know why they would want to take her, but for whatever reason they kidnapped her. They came in the middle of the night and took her out of her apartment and dragged her away to god knows where for god knows what reason. I woke in the middle of the night to an alarm I had set outside her apartment sounding.

And here I stand, in the middle of Orianna's apartment in the Southern end of Nos Astra.

The place is trashed, with tables and chairs overturned and dishes scattered all over the floor. This wasn't an alien sight to me, as I had done my fair share of ransacking over the years. Maybe that's what scared me the most, all of my years of work and toughening up not doing me any favors in my personal life.

I have a higher Iq than is fit to talk about and can kill with any weapon given to me, but even with all this I remain clueless as to Orianna's whereabouts.

I start walking through her apartment, sifting for clues, looking for anything that could get me closer to my baby sister.

A broken picture of the two of us on her bedside table, a dent in the plaster on the bedroom wall, a broken mirror with bloodstains on a few of the shards.

All of this evidence that could lead me closer to her left my mind blank. It wasn't a feeling I was used to, or planned to get familiar with.

I drew my cell phone and made the most important call of my life.

I called Liara, the local information broker. She had her long blue fingers in everything in Nos Astra, and she had better know what happened her, for her life's sake.

"Liara. Who is this?"

"My name is Miranda, and I am a paying customer. Is there anything else you need to know?"

"No. We meet at my office. One hour."

She disconnected. I hope that she would have the information I needed on hand, or I would shoot her and leave. Nobody could know that I was investigating my sister's kidnapping, they would get word around and I would never see Orianna again.

And that was not an option.

I ran out to my car and sped off into the night, leaving the destroyed apartment behind. The telephone poles turned into a picket fence and the other cars were standing still as I pushed my little red car to its limit and beyond, screaming past red lights and buildings in my quest for information. Nothing else mattered, not to me. All of Cerberus's little problems could wait until I found my baby sister.

No one dared to stop me as I sped towards the well-lit City Center with a hole in my heart.

The next few days would be bloody and violent, both for me and anyone who tries to stop me.

There would be deaths. There would be arrests. The City of Nos Astra would be at my mercy until I could bring my baby sister home.

Now, now, Orianna. Hang in there, girl. I'm coming.

**Thank you all for reading! Please give me some feedback on the story so far. And yes, the premise had changed to a noir action story in an alternate universe. Garrus will have his own story about a war with the Blue Suns, but that will come later. I'm not really sure how many Mass Effect characters this will include, but I want to give every one of them a part.**


	4. A Name and a Mission

Central Nos Astra was full of activity, with figures of all races rushing past each other in a hurry to get wherever they thought they needed to go. I was the only one walking with an actual purpose other than self comfort. They tried not to bump into the pretty woman in the white jumpsuit in hasty acts of courtesy, but I could have cared less.

Everyone seemed to be trying to get out of the rain. The rain that was pouring down in buckets on top this city, flooding sidewalks and seeping into rooftops. I had loved the rain since I was a child, even though I never told anyone. If I did, my father would make it his business to keep me from listening to it or standing in it.

Somehow, he would find away to keep me from what I wanted. He had always been good at that.

It was warm to the touch, soothing even.

But I didn't have time for soothing. Neither did Oriana, wherever she may be by now.

Liara's office was up a stairwell in the market district, which was now almost emptied, even the pesky little volus were driven in doors.

The stairs were steep, no doubt to humble the customer who was transcending them. She also had a good view of the street from here, with a window overlooking the entire market district and any points of access. I checked the load on my hand cannon before I was within view of the asari receptionist.

The young woman was seated behind a desk near the door, pretending to be busy with something as to make me ask if I could enter Liara's World. I wasn't in the mood for theatrics.

I burst into Liara's office, ignoring the woman's protests from behind me.

Liara stood up from her desk, looking at me like I had just smashed the Ten Commandments in front of her.

She was fairly young as far as her kind go, with innocent blue eyes to cover up her devious intentions. That was probably her one advantage over all of the other savant asari that had decided to broker information; she looked harmless and peaceful. But it wasn't fooling me.

"Who took Oriana Lawson and where are they keeping her?" I demanded, keeping my voice calm yet assertive.

"I don't give walk-ins privileged information," she said simply.

"I think you can make an exception, T'Soni." I set my hand cannon on her desk, the barrel facing her.

She looked down at the weapon, then back at me, calculating her next move.

I knew her assistant was standing behind me. I hadn't heard her get up, but I knew she was ready to dispatch me if I made a move toward Liara.

"If I can make an exception, then the price just went _up_," she sat down at her desk, content with her move like she had made it on a chess board.

Liara thought she had me, with her assistant leaning against the doorway, wielding a riot shotgun nonchalantly. No doubt she knew how to use it, but they both were out of practice.

Liara had made the classic smart person's mistake: she thought that no one here was smarter than her. Or as powerful.

I moved to sit down, taking a step back toward the guest chair.

The moment I heard the asari at the door sigh with relief I spun around, hurling a burst of biotic energy her direction. Normally, biotic attacks have to be focused to do real damage, but at this range it didn't really matter.

She was picked up and tossed like a child's toy through the air, crashing into the terminal at her desk.

Liara drew a gun from behind her desk, right as I overloaded the device in her hand.

She pumped the trigger incessantly for a second, before realizing that it was no use. She dropped the weapon on the floor.

"The price just went _down_, T'Soni."

Of course she talked. They all talk eventually. It was just a matter of how much pressure that has to be applied first.

She told me that she had been asked to locate Orianna a few days ago by an anonymous buyer via phone. The money was good, so Liara delivered, no questions asked.

I asked her who they were, but she didn't know. I wasn't going to hurt her if she was telling me the truth.

And if she wasn't, then I would come back and it would get ugly.

She did have one thing for me though; a name. The name of a man who might have had contact with the extraction team after the kidnapping.

The guy was named Harkin, an ex-cop who now gave out false identities like they were candy. Whoever had enough quarters could come and get some.

"And Miranda," Liara spoke from behind me. "I hope you do find her."

"I will, Liara."

With that I was out of there and back into the rain, back on the trail of the kidnappers.

I climbed into my bright red cruiser and took off, pushing the modified engine to its limit. The other cars were standing still around me as I raced closer and closer to my sister.

I took a picture of her that was in my wallet and tucked it into the dashboard. Her smiling face was looking up at me, reminding me of what I was fighting for.

And when I found the men who had taken her, I would take my time with them. I would kill them slowly, reminding them of what they had done every painful second of it.

Hold on, baby sis. I'm coming.


	5. Loose Ends

**Okay, I'll start out by saying that in the last chapter Liara could have fought Miranda with her own biotics. Maybe she would have won, but neither of them know the other one's biotic capabilities and Liara chose to just give up a single name instead of risking her life in a fight. I do know what Liara is capable of in terms of her strengths and weaknesses, I just didn't want a fight between two characters to get in the way of the actual plot. And we're moving on.**

Harkin's liar was deep in the projects on the south end of the city. It's in a place that you would never park your car and walk away from it in, some place that only people desperate enough for a new life or hopelessly trapped in their original life are willing to inhabit.

I could see them watching the woman in the car. Asari, krogan, batarians, even humans are trapped in this place. Humans weren't supposed to live like this. I joined Cerberus because they could protect my sister, until now, and so I could make a difference in the universe.

The aliens are afraid of humans because they look at us and see what they could have been.

Humans aren't any different. We aren't ignorant or hostile or anything like that. We just aren't afraid of change. We aren't afraid of new horizons or new challenges, or living in a universe with no borders or boundaries.

They stood at either end of the road, together, clothes so ragged and faded from their original colors that the person who made them wouldn't know what they were. Now it didn't matter what race they were, they were all just as bad off.

Harkin had his own little oasis in the middle of it all. What used to be a mansion stood in the middle of the shanty houses and dilapidated buildings.

The rusted fencing was patrolled by a half dozen guards, all armed with different weapons. They didn't have much body armor, either.

They must have had to buy their own from the money Harkin payed them. That meant that the group didn't have a lot of formal training.

I arrived at the gate, with my Camifex clutched in my hand. The guards had crowded around the entrance, all eying me suspiciously.

"Do you have an appointment?" one of them asked.

"Yes. Tell them that Oriana Lawson is here to see them."

The lead guard spoke into his radio, repeating the name.

I heard Harkin's voice curse on the other end of the line. Good. I wanted him to know what was about to happen.

At that moment I pushed the accelerator to the floor, my red car ramming through the crowd, scattering all of Harkin's security in one pass. They weren't dead, but they probably didn't get paid enough to get back up.

But I didn't stop. I kept going across the lawn, straight toward the wall ahead of me. It was made of cheap plaster and cardboard, and parted like the red sea for my car as it sailed through.

I found myself inside an ornate office, no doubt Harkin's. He was still sitting at his desk, staring in disbelief at what had just happened.

I quickly jumped out of the car, weapon aimed right at Harkin's dome.

"Hiya, friend. I just wanted to talk a minute."

The Cuban cigar he had been chomping on fell out of his gaping mouth. Then he tried to run.

Bad move.

I grabbed him with my biotics and tossed him into the nearest wall, cracking the plaster behind him before letting him fall to the marble floor.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Here, let me help you up."

I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and threw him against the wall again, this time with my bare hands.

I held him there, defenseless. Just like Oriana had been when they took her in her sleep.

"So I heard that you were involved in Oriana's kidnapping. Elaborate on that."

Just then his goods rushed in, weapons raised.

I raised my hand cannon, pressing it against Harkin's side, right as they were about to fire.

"Go ahead. If you shoot me, then you can say goodbye to your paychecks." I gave them the choice, already knowing what they'd do.

They valued their paychecks over a life without their boss on the street, so they set their weapons down right then and there.

"Now excuse me, gentlemen. We have to talk business."

They reluctantly filed out.

"You'll be shot before you can leave, missy!" Harkin spat. "I have men you don't even know about!"

"Really? They would be here by now I think. Do you want to tell me how you were involved, or do you want to give me another excuse to hurt you?"

"Look, lady. I don't know who you think you are-"

"My name is Miranda, and I am the most important person you will ever meet, and quite possibly the last."

He sighed, wiping a streak of blood from his cheek.

"Look, a few days ago, some guys showed up. Not locals. Real badasses, a professional team. They gave me the money up front, twice as much as what I make in a month. All they wanted was for me to erase Oriana Lawson's records, so that the police wouldn't do an investigation."

Professionals. Interesting.

"How many of them were there?" I asked him.

"About six or seven. That might have not been all of them, but these guys were scary. Two krogan, three turians, a salarian, and at least one human. Why? Are you going after them?"

"Something like that. I need more information."

"I already told you everything!" he shouted.

"No! You're a scumbag and a liar and you'll be a dead man if you don't give me more!"

I screamed in his face, holding him firm against the wall.

Suddenly there was shouting outside. Then gunfire. Long, loud bursts of sustained fire right outside the building.

"Boss!" one of the goons shouted. "They're back and they've opened fire! I think they're mercenaries!"

"Oh, god!" Harkin whispered. "It's them."

It took me less than a second to put the pieces together.

"You're a loose end, Harkin. They've come for you."


	6. Get up

Ashley Williams:

Remember when I said I wouldn't wake up until morning? Morning came at 2:00 AM for me when I felt somebody searching my pockets. Then I remembered where I was at; The Outskirts of Illium, in the middle of the night.

I was facedown, so he couldn't see that my eyes were open and shifting trying to get a bearing on the situation.

I felt a human hand reach into my cargos, looking for a wallet or a cell phone or something of that nature. Something valuable.

I reached back and grabbed the thief by the hand, holding him tight as he tried to squirm away.

I jumped up at him and knocked him to the ground, where I had been moments before. I pinned the assailant on the wet pavement where I could get a good look at him.

Then I saw that it wasn't a him, it was another woman. She was dressed in a dark overcoat with a hood that was pulled down over her eyes, masking half of her face from view. I could tell that she was oriental, at least at a quick glance.

"Give me a break, champ. I've had a long night." I let her up, offering a hand to pull her back to her feet.

She hesitated before accepting the hand and pulling herself up, brushing the dirt off of her jacket with delicate hands. She was smaller than I was, no doubt, and I think she was quicker, too.

"Sorry. I thought you were dead," she said simply.

"What difference does it make? You were still stealing!" I accused, then sighed. "Well, who isn't a thief around here, anyways? I'm probably just talking to a wall here."

I turned around and started walking away. I didn't know where I would go next, but staying here wasn't an option.

She caught up to me in a flash, faster than I had ever seen another person move. She offered a gloved hand to me and I took it.

"Kasumi Goto. I'm not what you think I am," she explained.

"Well, I'm Ashley Williams. So you're not a thief?"

"No, actually I am. I just-"

"Just what?" I demanded. This girl was making no sense. First she tries to rob me, then she tries to be my bestest buddy.

"Look, Williams. I only tried to rob you because I need to get out of here. A few days ago I had a job on the boarder of the Outskirts to make off with an experimental system, but-"

"It went bad." I filled in.

"It was a sting operation, actually. The Alliance and Illium police wanted me to give up some data a friend of mine has. I managed to get away clean, but they found my hideout and are screening flights out of Illium for mysterious passengers."

"So you can't just sneak on?"

"No, Williams. The new scanners they are using have only one weakness; the people operating them. My upgraded combat armor was seized during the raid, so I can't sneak past when they are on lockdown. So I had to go to the one place where they wouldn't dare look for me."

"The Outskirts. Are you sure you weren't followed?"

"Absolutely. I would know, trust me. Cops don't come into places like this unless they are enforced, and they can't afford to endanger their men by breaking them up into search parties."

Then I had an idea. Quite possibly the best one I have ever had in my life; surpassing my best field maneuvers in combat training.

"Believe it or not, we both want the same thing. So if I can get you the money to bribe one of the security personnel, can you get us off Illium?"

The question hung in the cold air for a minute as she weighed her options.

"Deal. But don't slow me down, Williams."

"Sure thing, Go-to."

"It's Goto. It's one word, missy."

Did she just call me _missy_?

Oh, yeah. This relationship was going to be a _ball_.

Elsewhere...

My name is Garrus Vakarian, and I am taking action.

Action against the killers, rapists, thieves, drug dealers, and less civilized types that now run this city.

Action against the cops who sit back and watch the city they swore to protect crumble around them, with pockets full of blood money.

Tonight, my team was going after Harkin. That's right, he had fled C-Sec and made a living making people disappear from the face of the universe.

And now he was going to disappear. Forever.

There were twelve of us. Twelve against half a billion in Nos Astra.

During the day, we lived our lives like normal citizens, worked dead-end jobs, pretending to have fun in spite of everything crumbling around us.

But at night, we came alive. Vigilantes, some would call us. I didn't know what to call myself, because I don't think I'm a hero. I tried not to give myself a label, restricting myself to a title that had boundaries and limits, a title that would eventually be betrayed by my noble intentions.

Twelve of us with no names were lurking in the shadows around Harkin's complex, waiting for a chance to strike.

There were half a dozen guards around the perimeter, if that's what he called them.

I knew what they were. What they were made of. They were just the same as those beyond his fence, only with bigger guns and something to fight for. I had encountered my fair share of street punks in my time at C-Sec, and these guys were no different.

I was watching the woman in the bright red car as she crashed into Harkin's domain. I didn't know what to think of that. It was heroic and stupid at the same time, but then again so was I.

"We're in position Garrus. That girl is a pretty good distraction. Let's move now," the other turian next to me said. That was Sidonis. He was a good soldier, a little jumpy, but reliable.

The two of us were sitting in a window far above the street, looking down at the chaos below.

"No," I ordered. "We have to wait until she's safely out before we attack. We have time." That move was heroic, and I couldn't risk her life in an attack.

"Garrus, we've run operations more risky than this. Let's just go now and get it over with," Sidonis was getting jumpy.

"Sidonis! Chill. I can handle it. Let me do it my way, the way we've always done things." He was starting to piss me off. If he couldn't trust his commanding officer, then it was time to reconsider his status on the team as second-in-command.

"Garrus, I tried to reason with you. I'm sorry, partner."

Before I could ask what he meant, he let his rifle rest on its tripod and stood over me. He just stood there for a minute, a dark silhouette in the colorless night.

Then he drew his Camifex from his belt.

I let go of my long rifle and threw a right hook into his jaw, sending Sidonis reeling into the opposite wall.

He was out of range for me to hit him again, so I tried to draw my own hand cannon to put the mad dog down, but I was too late.

He had his pistol raised as soon as he hit the wall. He fired. It sounded like a field cannon had erupted in the small space as the wind was knocked out of me by a high caliber bullet. He had hit me in the shoulder, but my kinetic barriers weren't activated yet.

Then he shot me again. I fell back against the wall under the window, my side was on fire with white hot pain. It was okay. It wasn't a kill shot.

Then her shot me again. And again and again.

It felt like I was being hit by a dumptruck each time one of the slugs pelted me, pushing me down to the floor, closer to hell each time he fired.

I tasted the hot, disgusting taste of blood as it welled up in my throat, seeping out of my open mouth. It was backwards. I should be bleeding out of my wounds, not my mouth.

The fact that his gun only had six rounds per magazine saved my life. He had spent six so far, hadn't he?

He raised the gun again, this time I could see all the way down the barrel, which was as cold and dark as my future.

He fired, the flash blinded me at the moment the bullet tore apart my cheek, searing through my flesh like a knife through butter.

That hurt more than anything else had hurt in my entire life. It felt like my face had been _pulled_ apart. Slowly. Agonizingly slow.

It couldn't have been quick, could it?

Then I heard him talking, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. Then shooting out the window, _with my rifle!_

He was in control of my team now, and they didn't even come back for me.

He ran out of the building to continue the attack. He just left.

The red was clouding my vision, swallowing me up.

_Come on, Garrus. You aren't dead yet. Get up!_

I reached for a pack of medigel on my waist. Each muscle movement brought back the waves of pain, right up to the moment that I pushed down the plunger and flooded my body with the numbing sensation of the life-saving goo. People always worry about overdosing on the stuff, but I couldn't get enough of it.

The relief it brought. The pain it eased. It was magical, divine.

But it had only slowed down my bleeding, as the blue goo was now soaking into my boots.

I had to get up. I just had to get up and get out of here.


	7. Survivor's hate

"Harkin! We have to get out of here right now!" I screamed at him, pulling the overweight pig with me as I ran down the hallway outside of his office. There was still intense gunfire around the property, but the fight would be over soon. Harkin's men wouldn't last five minutes against the mercenaries who were attacking the building.

"Easy, Miranda! I can walk, you know!" he shouted angrily.

I let him loose and we ran towards the back of the building through a black and white marble hall.

"I have a way out," Harkin told me, running ahead of me now. "It's underground, through the old pipeworks!"

"Lead me there! And I expect a full story when we're to safety!" I shouted above the gunfire, which was grwoing closer and closer to us.

"Of couse, I'll tell you everything! We just have to leave!" He was frantic.

He hung a sharp left, now traveling through an old storeroom full of empty shelves and broken jars.

Suddenly, two turian mercenaries rounded the corner, head-to-toe in full combat gear with rifles ready to fire.

I raised me hand cannon and fired, diving for cover in the same instant.

I saw the first two rounds fizzle out as they met his kinetic barriers, but the next four tore into his flesh, sending spouts of deep blue shooting out of his chest. He reeled backward, falling to the floor.

I rolled behind a shelf, reloading.

Harkin wasn't so lucky.

The second merc's Avenger tore my last chance at finding Oriana apart right in front of me, turning the sleazy fraud expert into a bloody pulp.

I ran along the shelf, rushing the remaining mercenary while I pumped the trigger of my hand cannon, the bullets tearing through the rotting wood separating me from him.

He fired back, taking cover behind another shelf adjacent to mine. He couldn't see me, but the bullet holes were damn close to where I was crouching.

I wheeled around the corner, on my third magazine.

He looked out from his position and started to open fire.

Before the third round left his rifle, I gathered my biotic energy and just _reached_ out, grabbing the gun out of his hands and pulling toward me.

I threw my pistol aside, letting it clatter to the floor as his Avenger sailed into my hands.

I kept my finger down on the trigger, blowing the turian apart with his own gun. He dropped to the floor, dead as dead can be. Absolutely riddled with bullets.

_Overkill is underrated._

I kept his rifle. It would do me good to have an additional weapon, even one that I had little experience with.

But now I had a big problem. Harkin had never told me the way out of here. This place was massive, and I was running out of time.

_Easy, Miranda. Just focus and you can do this._

I decided to take a chance and double back to the main entrance.

Those mercenaries must have the courtyard cleared out by now. If I could just sneak past them, then I could get in my car and speed off into the night before anyone else knew I was here.

Yeah, that sounded crazy enough to work. I tucked my pistol back into my belt and started running.

I doubled back through the dilapidated mansion, swinging my new rifle back and forth as I passed doorways and shattered windows, looking for hostiles.

I heard several men running down a hallway behind me, their shadows dancing on the walls as they passed.

Good. They think that they have this place locked down. I found it better to let them live that fantasy than to let them know of anything otherwise.

I got to my vehicle, which was covered in rubble, yet still sparkled in the dim light.

I literally jumped inside, slamming the door shut and setting my new rifle on the seat next to me.

Then I threw the car into reverse. It was time to get the hell out of here.

When I looked into my rearview mirror, I saw a pair of mercs at the gate, holding back scavengers and ruber-neckers from the sight before them.

I backed the car up out of the building and floored it, still in reverse.

The pair of goons was still looking toward the crowd and in the opposite direction of me when I hit them, sending both of them flying through the air like bits of shrapnel.

They fell with sickening cracks back to the hard, wet surface of Illium, and they didn't get up.

Four down. Many more left to go.

There was one place left for me to go tonight. One final person who could help me.

Liara T'Soni.

I was just hoping that they hadn't gotten to her first.

Elsewhere...

Getting up onto my feet was like trying to lift a car off of my back, only not so easy.

Somehow, my legs were under me again, and I was limping to the elevator, praying that whoever owned this place had payed the electric bill so that I wouldn't have to take the stairs.

It worked alright. It took me back to the streets. The cold, dark streets of Nos Astra in the early morning weren't any more inviting than they had been when I had arrived here.

I kept having to tell myself not to feel my face. Not to look at or try to understand what had happened.

Sidonis. That coward. He had shot his commanding officer and left him to die, but I knew he wasn't the only culprit.

None of my team had come back for me, either. They were just as guilty as he was.

_Sidonis_ had been the one who insisted on coming here. _Sidonis_ had arranged for us to attack Harkin tonight, and I was pretty sure I knew why.

Sidonis had always wanted to take merc contracts on the side for more funding. he had a good heart and good intentions, so I was easy on him. I had told him that we didn't do what we do for a paycheck, and he backed off.

Instead of confronting me like a real man, he had shot me when I trusted him the most. I did trust him. He had been like a brother to me, not afraid to challenge me or argue with my moral code when everyone else was silent.

I didn't know who he was outside of our work, but he had been a friend to me, and that was more than I could ask of most people.

One thing was for sure; his death wouldn't be quick and clean like the ones I gave criminals through my rifle scope.

It would be messy. It would be painful and nasty and sickening to watch, and it would be well deserved.

Even though I didn't know where Sidonis and my old team were going, that woman in the red car had killed at least two of them, so we had enough in common to be allies against Sidonis.

I just had to follow the woman in the bright red car.

**That's right, the three stories are starting to come together. I didn't think I'd have to beg people to give me feedback, but I am. So please leave comments or suggestions for future chapters, thank you!**


	8. Getting had and Getting Away

Ashley Williams:

There is no feeling worse than knowing that you have made a horrible mistake and there's nothing you can do to fix it. There is nothing worse than knowing that you have put someone in danger and that it is all your fault.

I had that feeling a few minutes after Kasumi and I walked into the diner, driven inside the spacious tavern by our hunger.

I had all of the money given to me by Anderson for the mission, which was more than enough to pay our bribe to the security guards at the hangar and get some food in our empty stomachs along the way.

The Cerberus thugs only took my weapons, they didn't dare get close enough to reach into my pockets. If Pel or Grayson would have tried it, I would have broken their hands in several places.

By the time our steaming food arrived I had told Kasumi everything that had happened. From getting caught at the warehouse to Madigan saving my life after he ran the car off of the road. Madigan was probably dead by now, may he rest in peace. He told me he wasn't Alliance, so I think he was a cop, undercover maybe, who had paid the price for my freedom.

I made a silent promise not to waste my second chance at getting out of here.

By the time we were finished, the sun was rising. It was so bright. The brilliant glow and warmth it cast down on Nos Astra seemed surreal, and I'm not sure why god would want to make a place like this visible for the whole universe to see.

"Let's go," Kasumi rose from her chair. She moved fluidly, which reminded me of my sister, Sarah. It's like everything she did was smooth and with confidence, or it appeared that way to me; a bruised up and dirt-covered marine.

Suddenly, I saw something familiar out of the corner of my eye.

When I say familiar, I don't mean warm and inviting and comforting, like back home on Amaterasu. I mean my heart began to pound in my chest so loud that it was hard to hear the barkeep tell me thanks for the tip. My blood ran cold and hairs that I didn't even know existed stood up on my back.

I saw Pel sitting in the booth in the corner, right next to the exit with a Predator in his lap. That bastard was smiling at me, only his smile was crooked and misshapen.

Like someone had broken his jaw. Madigan had gone out fighting after all.

Grayson was in the other corner closest to the door, only he wasn't smiling. He was staring at me intently with red-rimmed eyes, waiting for me to try and leave so he could put two in the back of my skull.

"Kasumi. I made a horrible mistake. We have to leave this second," I whispered to her.

"The two men by the door. I see them."

"I don't have a weapon. Do you?" We had frozen a short distance away from our table, trapped inside.

"Yes. But I won't be able to hit both of them before the other got a shot off," she whispered back. "And besides, they can't shoot us in here anyway."

I was about to ask why not, but then I saw the two cops sitting in a booth a few meters away from Grayson, enjoying coffee and doughnuts on their break. The were plainclothes officers, but the badges on their belts and guns tucked under their jackets gave them away.

"Have you ever _improvised_ before, Williams?" Kasumi asked as she grinned mischievously. "Watch and learn."

She calmly walked up to the two cops and started talking in a frightened voice.

"Please, officers. The man with the funny jaw is my creepy ex-boyfriend and he followed me here, and his friend is the sick-looking guy in the booth over there," she pointed out Grayson from across the room.

"Did he hurt you?" one asked, standing up.

"He... was rough when we were together-" Kasumi trailed off, lying through her teeth like a pro.

It was that easy to get them on their feet and ready for action. I would have believed her myself if I hadn't known better.

The two plainclothes cops confronted Grayson and Pel, who were as surprised as I was.

"Man, I've never even seen her before," Grayson attempted to plead with the officer, but to no avail.

"Get out of here!" the second officer shouted at Grayson, shoving him out the door. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood today,_ man_."

"You and your buddy are taking a hike, pal. If you come back here I'll take you out back and show _you_ how to hurt somebody, understand?" the lead officer shoved a seething Pel out of the building. Pel started to come back at him, but the officer opened his windbreaker and showed Pel the hand cannon under his armpit. Pel stopped in his tracks.

"Who do you think you are?" Pel demanded. I had no doubt that Grayson and Pel could kill the officers if they wanted to, but they were Cerberus, and their supervisor would probably kill _them_ if they got the police involved.

"Name's Dignam, pal. This is my partner Barrigan. You need my to spell that for you?" he demanded.

"No, sir. We'll just be leaving." Pel shot me an evil glance before walking away with Grayson in tow.

"That's what I thought!" Barrigan shouted at them as they disapppeared from view.

They would be around the corner somewhere, waiting for me, watching my every move. I knew that this wasn't even close to being over, but it felt good to one-up them like that.

Funny, I never thought cops in this place did their jobs, but I was wrong.

Kasumi walked back to me, smiling under the hood of her jacket. "Let's go, Williams. Hurry!"

She pulled me out the back before I could question her logic.

We tore down the trash-filled back alley, trying to get as much distance between us and the Cerberus agents as possible.

I was right about her being fast, not just slight-of-hand stuff, but she had endurance too. My battered body wanted to lay down and sleep off the wounds and exhaustion, but I forced myself to keep going and not lose the only ally I had right now.

So either...

A) I needed to work out more. Or...

B) She hadn't gotten into a fight with a bunch of guys twice her size the night before.

I don't know, but I'm seriously leaning towards B right now.

Just as i was about to collapse, she ducked into a shooter's crouch behind a dumpster, pressing her lithe form into the corner.

I fell next to her, dropping into a sitting position, trying to catch my breath.

At least she had the decency not to comment on my condition.

"We made good time Williams. We lost them three turns ago, but I wanted to be sure that they weren't behind us."

"You could tell that Pel and Grayson were behind us?" I asked in disbelief.

"Oh yeah. They were running after us, but we lost them. So what's the plan?" she turned to me.

I had to think for a minute. Where could we go that Cerberus wouldn't find us? Even if we found a suitable place to hide, it would take time getting there.

Then it hit me. The obvious answer to our problem.

"I know someone who is an information broker here," I told her. "Liara T'Soni, we fought together a couple of years ago and she lives here in Nos Astra."

"Ah, Liara. I know where to find her. Follow me. I just hope she remembers you," Kasumi stood up and started walking again.

I followed her out of the alley and towards the heart of Illium, the center of Asari culture. Central Nos Astra here we come.

I really hoped Liara was in a generous mood.

**As you can see, Miranda, Ashley, and Garrus's stories are going to converge at Liara's HQ, with chaotic results... If you've read my other Mass Effect story, you'll notice the cameo from Dignam, a protagonist working for the Elysium police in The Faithful Departed, and Barrigan, his partner who went bad and joined Cerberus. Here they are still partners, as this is an alternate universe without Shepard.**

**Thanks for reading! Please review and give feedback!**


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